Sichuan earthquake rescue workers carrying an injured person. In light of the widespread media coverage of natural disasters, such as the earthquake in Haiti and the tsunami in Japan, the public and medical professionals are aware of the anticipated immediate medical needs in these kinds of emergencies. However, it is less well known that after the initial management of life- and limb-threatening injuries, there may be an enormous need to provide care to persons with chronic illnesses. This is because they are displaced from their homes, become exposed to adverse environmental and socioeconomic hardships, lose access to healthcare, are deprived of their sources of medications, and so forth.

Some of my colleagues were allowed to enter Japan after the tsunami, and their observations agree with this assessment, which was also confirmed in a recent paper, “Chronic health needs immediately after natural disasters in middle-income countries: the case of the 2008 Sichuan, China earthquake,” authored by Emily Chan and Jackie Kim (Eur J Emerg Med 2011;18:111-114). The authors considered physical, social and public health preparedness. Read more »

The American College of Graduate Medical Education has enacted further restrictions on resident work hours. No more than 80 hours per week of work for resident physicians, averaged over one month. And no more than 16 hours of continuous work for first year residents (24 after that), which includes patient care, academic lectures, etc.

Whenever they do this sort of thing, everyone seems excited that it will make everyone safer. After all, residents won’t be working as much, so they’ll be more rested and make much better decisions. It’s all ‘win-win,’ as physicians in training and patients alike are safer.

I guess. The problem of course is that after training, work hours aren’t restricted. There is no set limit on the amount of work a physician can be expected to do, especially in small solo practices, or practices in busy community hospitals.

I understand the imperative to let them rest. I understand that fatigue leads to mistakes. I get it! But does the ACGME get it? Read more »

Researchers from Columbia University have developed a “lab on a chip” HIV and syphilis test, and are now reporting the first results from tests in the field conducted in Rwanda. The mChip, as it is called, is the size of a credit card and replicates all steps of an ELISA test, at a lower total material cost and within 20 minutes. After application of a blood sample, the chip is inserted into a $100 battery-powered handheld analyzer. It needs only 1 μl of unprocessed whole blood and does not require any user interpretation of the signal, providing a clear-cut yes or no result.

Right now, HIV testing in developing countries either relies on expensive laboratory testing taking a long time, or uses cheaper methods based on lateral flow, which, although very rapid, do not provide very reliable results. The mChip combines Read more »

Last night I was contacted by a physician in the local urgent-care. I like him, and we made polite, but brief, conversation. ‘So, are you guys busy?’

I gave him the status report. ‘Well, yeah. We have about 25 people waiting to be seen the waiting room is full and every patient room is full. Also, we just received a gun-shot wound to the head by EMS.’

‘Wow, sounds terrible! So, here’s what I need to send you…’

What he sent was, in fact, reasonable. A young woman with signs and symptoms of meningitis (who was treated earlier in the day for and upper respiratory virus…with Amoxicillin, of course.)

She needed a lumbar puncture, which I performed and which was negative.

[The paper] projects an increase of around 5 million newly insured rural residents by 2019 – even as the number of physicians in rural America lags

Quality of care is rated lower in rural areas in 7 out of every 10 health care markets; both physicians and consumers in rural areas more likely to rate quality of care lower than those in urban and suburban markets

The paper inventories the current state of health care for the 50 million Americans living in a rural setting — and it’s not pretty. The question, of course, is why does rural health compare unfavorably to urban health metrics, and what can be done to improve matters? Read more »

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